Welcome to Saturday Story Spotlight, my feature where I discuss books my husband and I are reading with our son, Daniel. These are books that he, we, or all of us particularly enjoy.

Dot by Patricia Intriago
Published by Margaret Ferguson Books, an imprint of Macmillan

Patricia Intriago’s Dot is a stark, sparse study in opposites. There are dots that are up and down, happy and sad, yummy and taste bad. Having the illustrations consist of little more than dots set against a solid background – most often black dots on white – means that there is little to distract from the attributes that define each set of dots. Daniel is particularly taken with the dots that are yummy and taste bad. Each of the two appears to have a bite taken out of it, but the bad-tasting dot has its missing piece next to it on the page, as if someone tasted it and then spit it out. Every time Daniel sees Dot, he grabs the book from my hand and starts flipping through the pages asking, “where yummy one?”

Although it isn’t as ornately illustrated as most of the picture books we read, Dot is attention-grabbing in its simplicity, as evidenced by the fact that Daniel latched onto one of the sets of dots almost immediately, after only one or two reads. We are enjoying Dot very much.

Welcome to Saturday Story Spotlight, my new feature where I discuss books my husband and I are reading with our son, Daniel. These are books that he, we, or all of us particularly enjoy, since we are definitely reading more than one book a week!

Ah yes, another of Daniel’s books that I can recite virtually all of without even glancing at the page (a very helpful skill, that, when he is being a squirmy wormy).

“Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs” is and has long been our favorite Sandra Boynton book, and we do love Sandra Boynton. The dinosaurs in this book are hilarious and endearing, and appear in pairs of opposites. Like so many of Boynton’s books, this one has a great rhythm, and really lends itself to fun vocal expression.

Now, at 17 months and after reading this book since we received it at his first birthday, I must say that Daniel is starting to get the slightest bit tired of the book and doesn’t ask for it or automatically bring it to me as he used to do, but nearly five months worth of daily readings says to me that this book holds up pretty well. Honestly, even my husband and I didn’t get tired of reading it so often, because it is such a fun book.